No matter how off the rails this world appears, God’s eye has always been on the tiny, fragile sparrow. He has never lost count of an injustice, a life, a human being. No nameless death was ever nameless. No senseless abuse was ever missed. He may have set the whole earth in motion with its mix of humanity and spiritual realms and principalities, but only One is on the throne where He has always been and will always be. If we are still holding a pile of tattered threads, it just means the story is not over yet.

Isn’t that hopeful? It’s what I’ve come to believe. It’s all witnessed and all noted and if it seems that something is unfair — that bad things happen to good people (hard to take) and good things happen to bad people (even harder to take) — it is because we do not know the full story.

The challenge for me is not whether or not to believe in God. The challenge for me is to believe in His redemptive powers. To believe that there, beneath the rubble, can be hope. That no suffering is unnoticed. That no loss is for nothing. That no death is in vain. It’s why I gravitate to stories of people who overcome. Who have used the struggle to build their heart muscles and go on to do tremendous things. For me, stories of personal redemption offers a glimpse of the Kingdom and what lies beyond. And that is so encouraging.